


All Along the Watchtower

by Thorne



Category: Sports RPF, Swimming RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-19
Updated: 2010-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-07 09:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/63710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thorne/pseuds/Thorne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian does his best to figure Michael out, and pretty much fails completely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Along the Watchtower

**Author's Note:**

> Set back on the 2004 "Swim with the Stars" tour. Big thanks to hackthis, who said [something](http://hackthis.livejournal.com/497070.html?thread=13588654#t13588654) in her comments that spawned the whole thing.

_Q: What's the biggest misperception out there about you after your skyrocket ride to fame at the Olympics? _

A: I've told you this before and (laughs) I will tell you again: People know everything about me. There's nothing else about me people don't know…

-[Twenty Questions with Michael Phelps](http://www.usaswimming.org/USASWeb/ViewMiscArticle.aspx?TabId=280&Alias=Rainbow&Lang=en&mid=408&ItemId=1523)

***

This is how it works out: they're repped by the same agency, and they always make a point of saying on camera what close friends they are, and how much they've grown to appreciate each other. Ian's not a liar-- he wouldn't say this stuff if it weren't mostly true. Ian's not stupid, either; it's to his advantage to be close to Michael, to leaven the rivalry with friendliness and keep people interested enough to cheer but not psychotic enough to print out TEAM PHELPS or TEAM CROCKER shirts. And Ian likes Michael. He does.

Ian still finds himself looking at Michael and wondering when the hell he's going to be able to figure out the person he's filming an entire documentary with, if ever.

And it just seems so stupid a thing to wonder. It isn't like there's a manual for this sort of thing, except that when it comes to Michael, maybe there should be because Michael blows all expectations off the map. Ian watches people; it's pretty much a default behavior handed off to him because he ended up being categorized as _The Quiet One_ (with a sub-heading of _Who Also Cooks_, and a further specific sub-sub-heading of _Who Plays The Guitar_, and the final designation of _Who Loves Bob Dylan and Antique Cars_) instead of _The Goofy One_, or _The Laidback One_, or _The Breaks World Records Like A Loan Shark Breaks Knees One_.

He watches. It wasn't ever this hard with Aaron or Brendan, but they were different. Ian can tell the different ways Brendan squints his eyes in either anger or amusement, the curve of Aaron's mouth right before a joke comes out of it; he knows not to let his guard down around Brendan when he has a wet towel in his hands, or when Aaron _doesn't_ have anything in his hands to keep them occupied. He's lived with them, trained with them, and maybe that has something to do with it. Constant exposure made figuring them out inevitable, no problem at all to predict what they were thinking and what they were about to do.

But that can't be it either, because he's been living with Michael in a _bus_, the two of them in each other's pockets pretty much 24/7, all over America. He thought that it would happen on its own, that day after day of being sprawled together on the couch, fighting over the last Doritos crumbs, and horsing around in the pool before the show started would somehow all come together and he would just-- _know_. He'd finally figure out what makes Michael tick, and then their friendship would be, if not complete, at least validated. Proven, in some weird way that Ian needs.

But he can't. Ian thinks that Michael somehow manages to keep everyone interested in him by the fact that he's not really mysterious at all.

_Shallow_, Brendan grumbled under his breath to Ian once during Athens, in a moment of passing irritation while they stood and watched Michael get interviewed for the seventy fucking billionth time, and maybe Brendan's right, but for all the wrong reasons. Ian thinks of Michael and he thinks of shallow water, moving fast but hiding nothing. Clear as can be.

And Michael is the _worst_ interview subject _ever_. He hunches and fidgets; he repeats himself; he ignores blatant lead-ins to other questions or opportunities for expansion; he has a vocabulary of about ten descriptive words that he never changes. And yet, he's also the idiot savant of interviews because he still manages to come off so wholesome and all-American that people all over the country probably simultaneously feel the urge to bake apple pies, ride tractors through cornfields silhouetted against the sunset, and sing _Journey_ power-ballads.

It's an embarrassingly long time before Ian realizes that Michael's doing it deliberately. He _can_ do a good interview and answer a question thoughtfully. He just doesn't bother.

One day, he's draped over a lane rope and listening to Michael tell Lenny the same story Michael's told to three reporters, a PR rep, his mother, and Ian himself, each time with a slightly different spin on it. And that's when something else finally clicks for Ian, because it's not that Michael always knows the right or smartest thing to say, it's just that he's got an uncanny gift for knowing what everybody _wants_ to hear.

"It doesn't matter anyway, man," Michael says once, late one afternoon on the tour. He's flat on his back on a hotel bed, trying to throw a pair of goggles so that they'll catch on the lazily turning ceiling fan. "For real. People are gonna ask whatever, and just hear what they want. So I figure, why be all difficult about it? They'll figure out whatever I'm up to once I do it. Or they won't. Either way, it's less hassle."

"Doesn't… I mean, just. Doesn't it matter?" Ian asks, struggling to articulate something he'd figured was so obvious that he has no idea how to say it; _That's kind of fucked up_ doesn't quite seem polite. "Don't you care? That everyone thinks you're kind of someone else?"

"Well, yeah." Michael gives him a distinct _you idiot_ look. "But if they're not really listening, why bother? I figured that out way long ago. I know what they _want_. It's just easier this way."

"_I_ listen," Ian says finally, much later.

Michael looks at him, with the same bright smile that everyone got. "I know, dude," he says, and continues undressing.

Every now and then, Ian wakes up and finds Michael already awake. Sometimes he's stuffing his face with something that's supposed to pass for breakfast; sometimes he's mouthing along to whatever's playing on his iPod; sometimes he's playing video games. Sometimes he's doing all those things at once. And sometimes, he's not doing anything at all.

Watching Michael when he doesn't know it is a strangely satisfying pleasure, as long as Ian doesn't think too hard about it and whether or not it's weirder than Michael keeping a poster of Ian on his bedroom wall. He'll stand quietly for as long as he can, watching Michael sprawl gracelessly on the couch, blank-faced like an expensive computer that's still on but has gone into idle mode. And then something will jolt Michael back, like his phone buzzing, or Lenny flushing the toilet, or an inadvertent noise from Ian, and Michael grins at him like a curtain rising to fanfare.

And after a while, Ian's not just watching any more.

Ian knows some things by now. Michael likes to have either his wrists or his hips held firmly or down; he likes to have the nape of his neck mouthed but not bitten; he likes it softer and slower when they don't face each other, and rougher and faster when they do. They face each other more often than not, and Ian doesn't know what to make of that. It bothers Ian a little; he doesn't really think of himself as someone that anyone would expect or require roughness from.

Watching Michael is like staring into rippling water and watching the reflection change every time, break and re-form, again and again. Michael reflects what people want back at them. Ian watches, and he isn't sure what he's seeing means about himself.


End file.
